Hero Editor is a character editor for the genre-defining action RPG, Diablo II.

Hero Editor can be used to edit saved games from Diablo II, up to and including the latest patch. As the program is not perfectly robust, it is recommended to have the latest patch entirely, which has been released for many years. Attempts to edit a character from earlier patches may fail, but this is not usually something you would need to do anyway!

You can use Hero Editor to edit any Diablo II saved game with which it's compatible. This doesn't mean the game world where the character is, which is stored in the game files, but you can use Hero Editor to change your character's progress in the storyline, to an extent.

More pertinently to most users, you can give your character more experience (and thus levels), higher stats, better equipment, or more skill points (good for when you've truly messed up). This is the primary way to use Hero Editor. Although its interface can be occasionally confusing, leaving you to spend a few minutes finding the field you want to edit, it is generally quite simple and safe to edit your character with the program!

Overall, Hero Editor is a very effective way to modify your Diablo II character, and it comes highly recommended if you need to do that. But keep in mind that you should only try to use Hero Editor with the single-player campaign of Diablo II – character editing in multiplayer will usually fail, and it will always be against Blizzard's terms of service. Don't get banned, and treat your fellow players well besides!

Pros

Can easily be used to make your character more powerful, or catch up to the game

Can inject items into the game that can't otherwise exist

Can be used to make unique but normally ineffective characters, like a sword-wielding Sorceress